Because it’s the most popular platform for buying PC games, it’s no surprise Steam accounts are stolen every day. In 2015, Valve said roughly 77,000 accounts are “hijacked” each month, a combination of hacking, passwords compromised by data breaches, or insidious tricks. Brian had his account stolen, too, but not the way you think. Brian’s father stole his account, one they shared together, after getting in his car, driving off, and leaving his family.

That’s when one of Brian’s friends noticed his Steam account showed 1,200 hours playing Skyrim. The friend sent a message ribbing him about it, and Brian sent back a snarky reply.

“So I respond something along the lines of ‘Oh, that’s my father, he’s a loser. All he does is stay home and play video games all day,’” said Brian. “Me, being an idiot and not realizing he’s on the same account as me, he could see the message. [laughs] After that, he freaked out on me. ‘Why would you say things about that about me?’”

This bit in particular sucks so bad about modern digital life if you’ve ever had to deal with helicopter parents. I’ve had moments of posting “wow I can’t believe this ridiculously racist thing my mom said” on Twitter, followed by her snooping on my account and going on an angry tirade.

I’m very much hoping that the Gen X and millennial parents will do a way better job than boomers as far as respecting the online privacy of their kids.

I get your sentiment and definitely agree. In this instance I don’t think Brian’s father could’ve avoided those messages. By default your recent messages always display on Steam and if you’re logging on from multiple locations you can get repeat notifications assuming you’re not already logged on in two locations in which case they appear in real time anyway.

Aside from the incident I think parents feel powerless to monitor their children when it comes to online interactions and need guidance on when to intervene and what signs of “trouble” to look for.

“They need proof that I am the oldest owner of the account,” he said. “That account is nine years old now or something? I got it at a IT tech camp when I was like 12. It’s like summer camp but you don’t go outside, it’s kinda funny. [laughs] I was learning how to do mods on the Source engine at camp. It was really cool. I was making maps for Half-Life. That was the first time I even knew what Steam was.”

I actually went to the same camp when I was a kid - it’s called iD Tech Camp rather than IT